Bracing for the vertical liftoff, Carolyn Jordan, SECS ’22, sits in the back of a Black Hawk helicopter, exhilarated by her first ride in the aircraft. Donning her uniform, she looks out over the expansive horizon, capturing photos of this first of many flights to come.

“It’s a really weird feeling to just be going straight up into the air all of a sudden,” Jordan says. “It was exciting when I first came back from training in the National Guard to learn that I was slotted into a flight company and had the opportunity to fly in a Black Hawk helicopter for all those years that I was in school.”

Charting a Course

Carolyn Jordan, SECS ’22

Jordan’s journey to becoming a Black Hawk helicopter crew chief — and later, a federal aviation technician — for the National Guard began at Oakland University. Gravitating toward her passion for math and science, Jordan came to OU to pursue a degree in engineering. But though she was unsure of her future career path, her introductory classes offered a chance to test out the different facets of engineering. While she enjoyed them all, Jordan found that her greatest interest lay in mechanical engineering.

“With mechanical engineering, I enjoyed the classes, material and everything I had the opportunity to learn about,” says Jordan. “I was excited at the multitude of opportunities with that degree.”

Jordan came to OU as an Honors College student and a recipient of the prestigious Presidential Scholarship, which helps alleviate the stress of tuition, room and board, awarded to incoming students with outstanding academic records. Additionally, “The Honors College gives you more opportunities outside of learning your coursework to connect you with professionals in your field and try to set you up for success after graduating,” explains Jordan.

“The engineering professors were also really helpful,” she continues. “Along with teaching you coursework, they give you an insight as to what life would look like in these different engineering roles and help you figure out what you want to do.”

In Lincoln, Nebraska, during a cross-country flight, Carolyn Jordan finishes troubleshooting and fixing an aircraft.

SECS Instructor Steven Thrush, Ph.D., SECS ’10, ’12 and ’20, and tribologist with the U.S. Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicles Systems Center, met Jordan during her freshman year. “She told me she had aspirations of serving in the military,” he says. “I encouraged her to enlist, saying if she feels the urge to serve her country, she should or it would always be a regret.”

During a career fair, Jordan was given the chance to pursue this interest. She enlisted in the Michigan Army National Guard and took a semester off in January 2020 to attend basic training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. Jordan spent three months with little access to the outside world and, upon completing her training at the end of March 2020, found a very different world. “We were all supposed to see our families at basic training graduation, but [the National Guard officials] sat us down and told us there was a pandemic and the whole country was shut down,” Jordan recalls.

Jordan and her comrades were quarantined to the barracks, unable to see family or gain access to buses that would transport them to specialized training schools. Nearly three weeks later, Jordan was granted transport to the 15 Tango School, a U.S. Army Advanced Individual Training program for Black Hawk helicopter mechanics in Fort Eustis, Virginia. There, she was trained extensively in Black Hawk helicopter maintenance, including inspections, preventative maintenance and troubleshooting issues. After graduating from the 15 Tango School, Jordan returned to OU to continue her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering.

“One of the things that I found fascinating and unusual about her, particularly as a woman engineering student, is that she was a part-time member of the Army National Guard as a student,” says Mechanical Engineering Professor Laila Guessous, Ph.D. “She brought interesting insights to the fluid mechanics class when we were discussing topics of aerodynamic lift and drag, and angular momentum based on her experience with helicopters.”

Ready for Liftoff

Coming out of training, Jordan was slotted into a flight company as a crew chief, spending her weekends as a passenger in a Black Hawk helicopter. “My first few drills were continuing to learn about the aircraft and basic maintenance, but it wasn’t long before I started flying on the aircraft, sitting in the back providing support for missions,” Jordan says.

“When I enlisted, I was definitely interested in a role as a mechanic on an aircraft because I knew what a unique work experience that would be,” she adds. “So I was excited at the opportunity to work on the aircraft, learn about their systems and be able to apply this hands-on knowledge in the future.”

Carolyn Jordan (right) with fellow soldier/crew chief Sergeant Madeline Rambo (left) at Selfridge Air National Guard Base.

On top of her National Guard duties, Jordan was also a member of the Oakland Robotics Association, the Emerging Leaders Program and the Golden Grizzlies Band. Even with her busy schedule both on and off campus, though, she continued to excel in her coursework, graduating with a 3.98 GPA and receiving the OU SECS Exceptional Achievement Award. Her professors described Jordan’s work as meticulous and nearly flawless.

“She was still maintaining the absolute highest level of academic success at OU while serving with the National Guard,” recalls Dr. Thrush. “There have been times of adversity for her. Being a female in the male-dominated profession of mechanical engineering as well as in our military has presented her with challenges, but she is strong, resilient and dedicated.”

“During the first year or so that I was at my National Guard unit, I did face challenges,” Jordan explains. “I came into my unit with one other female, and there were times that we were told that we didn’t belong in a flight company and that we would never be good crew chiefs. But over the next few years, when a new male would come to our flight company from training, we would hear those same people say that he seems like a solid guy. The juxtaposition was frustrating at times.”

During an annual door gunnery drill, Carolyn Jordan flies in an aircraft along an aerial gunnery range in Camp Grayling, Michigan.

Her dedication to the field, however, continued upon graduating from OU, when Jordan pursued a full-time position with her National Guard unit as a federal aircraft technician, gaining further experience in aviation maintenance. She spent her days doing inspections on postflight, corrosion and scheduled preventative maintenance. She also worked through complicated projects that involved rigging flight control systems, tracking and balancing rotor systems, as well as troubleshooting issues involving subsystems such as fuel, avionics, hydraulics, pneumatics and more.

After serving five years in the National Guard, however, Jordan is setting her sight on her next adventure. This summer, she started a new position at Ascential Technologies — a medical and life sciences, transportation and specialty industrial manufacturing company — as a manufacturing engineer, excited to use her unique skills and experiences from OU and the National Guard in a new way.

“My experiences have been extremely valuable to me,” Jordan says. “The skills and knowledge that I gained from my degree have set me up to be successful in my new role, and my time in the National Guard gave me the opportunity to work with many different types of people; a skill that will be useful as I regularly communicate with operators, quality, management, programmers, supervisors and more.”

“I am excited to take everything that I have learned and move back to the field of engineering,” she says.

Carolyn Jordan with her parents.